About Us
Garrett’s Herd
Garrett’s cow herd started at the 2002 Kel McC Angus sale by purchasing “Kel McC Ms Husker 9018 235”, a heifer that was bred to AAR Really Windy 1205. Most of the cows in my herd are descendants of this MATRIARCH cow. Building this cowherd has been done mostly by keeping elite heifer prospects. Buying cows is a hobby that seems like don’t ever pay. My goal is to develop a home raised Angus based (50% or better) female herd and cross them up with industry leading Simmental sires with an emphasis on GROWTH, after all calves are sold by the pound.
Gavin’s Herd
Gavin’s herd started at the 2004 Kel McC Angus sale with the purchase of “Kel McC Ms Maiden 310 10” a heifer that was bred to Kel McC Windy 345. The “Maiden” line has proven itself to be consistently easy calving, and easy keeping in both performance and convenience traits. With 15 of the current herd tracing back to the original 310 cow. While the bulk of the females that make up the herd are product of retained heifer calves, other individuals have been added that we felt could add, to the genetic contribution to the program. AAR Airy Primrose 5217 and AAR Airy Primrose 7231 a set of sisters purchased from Arntzen Angus ranch purchased in 2016, and 2018 respectively, and S Pioneer 355 purchased from Schmitt Angus in 2016, all have daughters in production at the ranch and looks as though they will have an influence on the herd for years to come.
Our Program
To us, calving ease doesn’t mean sacrificing growth.
Our cows are bred to have calves that weigh 7% of their body weight with no assistance! Our average birth weight for 2020 calf crop was 86 lbs. We believe bigger calves equate to healthier calves while getting their start in an environment that isn’t necessarily advantageous to baby calves. Green grass, loose mineral, and lots of water is our summer feed schedule. No creep!
Weaning takes place at or around 200 days. After weaning a high roughage diet is fed throughout the winter to encourage high energy, muscle development, and maturity.
Breeding takes place on yearling heifers at around 430 days. Cows need to be able to travel on some rough country and are not pampered, All our cows work for a living! We live in a climate that requires us to feed sometimes 6 months out of the year so they have to be able to produce! We breed to high growth Simmental and Angus bulls that are sure footed clean-uddered and temperamentally flawless. There are too many good cows in the world to have a bad one!
Along with our registered herd, our family has around 500 head of commercial mamma cows that are GAP certified, IMI CARE certified and verified all natural NHTC. We treat these cows just like the registered herd and annually average 600+ lbs. wean weights at just 200 days old.